Results tagged “eminentdomain”

[UPDATE BELOW] The dream of the Second Avenue subway line is turning into a nightmare for dozens of Upper East Side residents who must relocate to make way for ventilation shafts, stairwells and infrastructure for the $4.5 billion line, scheduled to open in 2017. (Coincidentally, that's the very same year a team of leprechauns and unicorns will finish transforming the East River into hot chocolate waterfalls.) Some 60 residences in the neighborhood must be vacated, and tenants—many of whom occupy rent-stabilized apartments far below market rates—say the relocation service hired by the MTA is not providing them with comparable options, as required by federal eminent domain laws.

In a highly contentious July decision, Brooklyn's Community Board 1 voted to convert a 31-acre area zoned for manufacturing on the border of Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant into 1,895 low-rise apartments—905 of which would charge below-market rate rents. Opponents say the buildings would be too small and accuse the city of awarding housing contracts to non-profits tied to influential Assemblyman Vito Lopez—the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and the Bushwick Ridgewood Senior Citizens Council—without putting the sites up for bid.

After a state appellate court rejected a lawsuit stopping his Atlantic Yards project, developer Bruce Ratner says that ground will be broken sometime this year (maybe this summer, maybe this fall). He told the NY Times, "I’m honestly overjoyed. This is a weight off my back." A group of property owners in the footprint of the massive project had claimed eminent domain was improperly used to obtain land; the appellate court unanimously rejected the challenge, finding, "It cannot be said that the public benefits which the Atlantic Yards project is expected to yield are incidental or pretextual in comparison to the benefit that will be bestowed upon the project’s private developer." Still, the opponents, who believe Ratner will profit much more than the public will benefit (and who have helped stall the plans for two years), vow to take their case to the Court of Appeals. The Daily News notes, "The decision allows Ratner to qualify for tax-free bonds to build the arena and the go-ahead to purchase the MTA-owned rail yard on which it will be built."

Mayor Bloomberg's controversial plans to rezone and develop the Coney Island amusement district have been long stymied due to a breakdown in negotiations between the city and developer Joe Sitt, who has bought up much of the beachfront property in the area targeted for development. The city wants to purchase Sitt's 10.5 acres of property, which includes the now-desolate Astroland, for approximately $110 million, according to the Post.

Five months after state officials found the site "blighted," the Empire State Development Corporation voted to use eminent domain to seize real estate for Columbia's Manhattanville expansion. The Columbia Spectator reports, "The state's decision on Thursday, will allow the state to seize land from two holdouts who have not struck property deals with the University. In exchange, the landowners--Nick Sprayregen, the owner of Tuck-It-Away Storage, and the Singh family, which operates two gas stations in Manhattanville--will receive market rate compensation." But apparently Sprayregen will "file our petition contesting the findings of eminent domain."

Hiram Monserrate, the City Councilman who had been one of the leading voices of opposition foiling Mayor Bloomberg’s redevelopment plans in Willets Point, announced yesterday that he has struck a deal with the mayor and thrown his support behind the proposal which is expected to be voted on (and will now likely pass) today. The new deal includes guarantee that one-third of the housing built to be marked "permanently affordable” for low-income families, an 850-seat school and a convention center to be built in the area, a $3 million tenant relocation fund available for area businesses and job training and placement for the 1,300 affected workers.The plan still doesn’t rule out the possibility that the city will have to invoke eminent domain. Not all of Monserrate’s constituents were happy with his announcement—some local business owners painted over his name on his campaign bus.

The Empire State Development Corporation held a two-day meeting for the public to air their opinions and concerns about Columbia University's Manhattanville plan. The NY Times reported, "while the two-day hearing featured testimony from a former mayor, members of the State Legislature and the president of Columbia University, the group that will make the ultimate decision, the development corporation’s board, was not there." (Only a lawyer for the ESDC listened.) Former mayor David Dinkins said he is "convinced it...will be positive for Columbia and its neighbors." But on the other side, others, notably Nick Sprayregen who is fighting Columbia to keep his property in the footprint, said there's no reason why the ESDC should have declared the area blighted, opening up the door to eminent domain.

     

A new photography exhibit examining the shifting views of public and private space, , opens today at the New York Public Library. Five photographers' recent projects "deal with the life of the city in terms of passage (of seasons and time, people and place) and exchange (between individual and collective, interior and exterior)."

As mentioned late last year, Flux Factory (LIC's beloved art space) is being forced out of their home under eminent domain to make way for the MTA's $6.3 billion East Side Access project. They report on their (hopefully temporary) end online:

Now it must all be destroyed. Our entire block will be razed by the pitiless bulldozers of the MTA. Everything Must Go. Alas, such is the fate of all terrestrial things. So, to mark the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, we’re inviting artists to transform all of Flux into one giant installation.

The abrupt elevation of Lieutenant Governor David Paterson to the top seat in NY State government should mix things up a bit in Albany and NYC. First up is the state budget, and with a grim economic outlook and behind-the-scenes transitions, he said yesterday, “We cannot afford to waste another second. We have a budget that is due and a deadline to meet.”